for anything that I have had to do therein, or can do; but yet, forsooth. it is a troublous thing to agree upon a doctrine, in things of such controversy, with judgments of such diversity." The book was "established by Act of Parliament;" and was afterwards enlarged, corrected, and re-published, under the title of, "A necessary Doctrine and Erudition of any Christian Man." The cleansing of the Christian sanctuary was an arduous undertaking; and was only accomplished by years of patient labour.

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It is now attempted, by an influential party in the church of Cranmer, to revive those superstitious observances which he laboured so long, and so hard, to remove. The object of these persons is evidently, by the introduction of a symbolic ritual, to restore the doctrines of Popery. This is clearly avowed in the statement of their writers, Ritualism without doctrine is mere formalism, and worse than valueless." By gradually habituating the thoughtless, and the superficially sentimental, to Popish forms of worship, they aim at the revival of doctrines which have been repudiated as false and destructive. If the Protestantism of the Established Church is to be preserved, the movement of these parties must be resisted by every legitimate means. Their course of action is dishonourable in the extreme. They boldly employ their position in a church which the nation maintains as a bulwark against Popery, for the re-introduction of its superstitions, and its priestly rule over the consciences of the people. Popery is the unyielding antagonist of all true freedom and national advancement. These lovers of a "histrionic " worship would carry us back to the spiritual darkness of the "middle ages."

We are told that the Old-Testament religion was marked by an elaborate ritual. It is quite true that the ritual of Moses was elaborate and imposing; but it was Divinely specified and appointed. The reason for it is very obvious: the surrounding heathen nations had their religions and their ceremonials. In order to preserve His own chosen people from the evils consequent upon their adoption of any of these religions, God supplied them with the only true one by a special revelation; and their whole condition required that they should be instructed in this religion through the medium of type, symbol, and ceremony. They were incapable of receiving and appropriating the fuller and more spiritual revelation of the plan of redemption, which their rites and ceremonies were intended to pre-figure. They were, therefore, taught by God in the only manner which was suited to their condition. Christianity is the completed revelation of the redeeming scheme. It is pre-eminently the dispensation of the Spirit. The symbols and ceremonies of the old dispensation, having accomplished their object, were abolished. The writings of St. Paul present these facts in the clearest light. We have the right to affirm that, as God gave a ceremonial for the former dispensation, He would certainly have given one for the latter also, if it had been His intention that it should be accompanied by any such outward order. But neither the Divine Redeemer, nor any of His apostles, has furnished us with anything of the kind. We read the Acts of the Apostles, and the apostolic letters, in vain in our search for the slightest intimation that

they appointed, or practised, a form of worship such as these pretended lovers of Scripture order are seeking to revive. History speaks with no uncertain sound on this vital subject. We are told that the Greek and Armenian churches practise these puerilities. Is it meant that we are to accept them as our guides in the matter of our worship? We must rather be guided by the apostles, and the immediately postapostolic church. Was the worship which St. Paul conducted any approximation to the gorgeous performances of the apostate Church of Rome, or of its Anglican imitators? Justin Martyr informs us of the beautiful simplicity which marked the services of the church in his time; and that simplicity in the form was accompanied by rich and deep spirituality. These freely harmonized; and the church rejoiced in the presence and power of God.

These innovations on the time-honoured practices of our Protestant Establishment are distinctly opposed to the spirit and objects of Christianity, and must degenerate into the idolatry of form, or be employed as a symbolism of the worst errors of Popery. The least evil that can arise from the course pursued, will be the conversion of the spiritual worship of God into a mere sensuous entertainment. But we are warranted in believing that the deliberate intention is, to reintroduce all that makes Popery a system of soul-destroying error and of priestly ascendency. May we not justly inquire, what legal right there is for the employment of these novel forms in the Church established by law? The present law of the Established Church on ritual is the one contained in the Act of Uniformity passed in the memorable year 1662. It is there declared: "Here it is to be noted, that such ornaments of the church and of the ministers thereof, at all times of their ministering, shall be retained and be in use, as were in this Church of England by authority of Parliament * in the second year of the reign of Edward VI." The second year of Edward VI. terminated on the 28th of January, 1549. The Act for appointing the Book of Common Prayer was passed on the 21st of the same month, and, therefore, falls within the second year. The interpretation of this statute for which we contend is, that it was designed to prescribe the future order of worship in the Church, and that, by necessity, what it did not appoint it forbade. Its directions were those which every minister in the Church was required to follow in the various services conducted by him. Whatever was not appointed was alien to the intention of those who framed the statute. With reference to it, the King made a note in his diary to the effect, that "a Parliament was called, where a uniform order of prayer was institute." In opposition to this view of the law, we are told that it was intended to admit the continuance of such practices as were not actually forbidden by it. In other words, what it did not proscribe it prescribed. We are here asked to believe that when a law was made for the purpose of regulating the offices of the Church, it was really intended to render lawful whatever it did not forbid. Is it surprising that certain parties are charged with Jesuitism? It is an affront to our common sense to suppose that we can accept this as a natural

The italics are ours.

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interpretation." Let every reader ask himself, what is his meaning when he gives instruction about the doing of anything which he requires to be done. Does he intend that every method may be employed which he has not forbidden? Does he not rather intend that his instructions, and his instructions alone, are to be followed?

An attempt is made to avoid the force of this law by limiting "the authority of Parliament in the second year of Edward VI." to the statute of 25 Henry VIII., c. xix., which enacted that all ecclesiastical offices and modes of worship which were not contrary to the then existing laws, and to the prerogative of the King, should remain in use until actually condemned. We are on this ground asked to allow that all things not positively forbidden by the law of Edward, and which existed at the time of the statute of Henry, may now be regarded as of lawful use. It is, however, fatal to this subtle process, that the statute of Henry was frequently renewed, and finally was appointed to be in force during the King's life. At the death of Henry the statute ceased to be; it died with the King; and "the authority of Parliament” by which the law of Edward was passed, was no other than the authority of the Parliament then sitting. That was the authority alone by which all matters of ecclesiastical usage were then settled. This is obvious from the note in Edward's diary, given above. Evidently Edward regarded the existing Parliament as the one by whose authority the uniform order of prayer was instituted. The only just view, therefore, is, that this "uniform order of prayer" is the one established by law, and by which the ministers of the church are required to regulate their ministrations.

It may be presumed that the compilers of Edward's Book of Common Prayer knew what they intended by it. They tell us that great diversity had obtained in the mode of conducting worship in the church, but "now henceforth [in] all the whole realm shall be but one use;" and also that "by this order curates shall need none other books for their public service, but this book and the Bible." Nothing can be more clear than that they regarded this book as the sole authority and guide in all the future ministrations of the Church. Upon the fall of the Duke of Somerset, a desire was manifested by some to restore former usages. The result was, a proclamation was issued by Edward to the bishops, requiring them to obtain from the ministers under their episcopal authority" all other books of service, the keeping whereof shall be a let to the use of the said Book of Common Prayer," and so to deface them that they might not be " at any time a let to that godly and uniform order which by a common consent is now set forth." This is conclusive evidence that Edward's Book of Prayer was that by which all the services of the Church were henceforth to be regulated, and that all the old books were doomed to destruction. These regulations were accordingly enforced by the reforming bishops of Edward's time. And upon the accession of Elizabeth in 1558, she issued an "injunction," requiring the prescriptions of the Service-Book to be precisely followed, and forbidding the use of any other vestment than "the cope in the administration of the Lord's Supper, and the surplice in all other ministrations." The Service-Book of Elizabeth was, with some slight modifications, the

Prayer-Book adopted by the Parliament of 1552; and this was a revised and more Protestant edition of the book of 1549. The churchmen of the times of Edward and Elizabeth had no idea of their Prayer-Book being a mere supplement to the old service-books of practically Popish times. They held that it was designed to supersede them, and to exclude them from all further use. Their immediate successors proceeded upon this supposition. And, as a high legal authority has said, "Those who immediately succeeded to the Reformation must have best known the minds of the first Reformers." The practice of the Church for three hundred years is expressive of the same judgment. We hold, therefore, that both law and precedent condemn the practices of those who are so enamoured with Popish ceremonies and doctrines as to imitate the one and to teach the other.

Were the question of law doubtful, as we are desired to believe, what, in that case, would be the becoming course for those to adopt who are dissatisfied with the mode of worship which has obtained so long in the Church of England? Surely it would be to appeal to the competent authority for a judgment on the disputed points; and meanwhile to submit to the order of things which has acquired something like the force of law by long usage and common consent. Upon their own principles, they certainly ought to have sought a deliverance on the subject from "Convocation," which they desire to exalt by conferring on it supreme legislative power. No such approach to modesty has marked their proceedings. They have presumed to decide for themselves, and thus to involve the Church in controversy and confusion. The authority of bishops has been treated by their own clergy in the most contemptuous manner, with the intimation that there is but the slightest difference between it and that of the presbyter; and if the judgment of the bishop be wrong, the presbyter may set it at nought, himself deciding upon the question of its rightness. We must be prepared to accept the alternative to which they have reduced us, and carry the whole matter to the only court which has the power to declare what shall be regarded as the lawful ritual and doctrine of the Church established by law. It is to the high court of Parliament the appeal must be made. If the Anglican Church could remove these abuses, and place itself on a safely Protestant basis, we should be content to have it so But we see not the slightest prospect of this. Whatever incongruity we may see in an assembly like the British House of Commons legislating on doctrine and church worship, there seems to be no other course left open. The recommendations of the Royal Commission may be more or less satisfactory; but the final decision is with the highest authority in the State. Let the thousands of our evangelical Israel seek to exert a wise influence in these grave matters, that such decisions may be arrived at as shall preserve the Protestant character of our national institutions. Every lover of Christian worship, and of Protestant truth, must feel that he has a sacred duty to perform; and must awake to the performance of it with a full sense of its importance, and with all possible earnestness and resolution. The ark of God is in danger. Our fathers languished in prison, and died at the stake, for our deliverance from the dark and cruel tyrannies of Popery. Our

religious liberties, our Christian truth, and our purity of worship, have been dearly bought. Shall we allow them to be stealthily invaded by a foe which we are cherishing with our national wealth ? Let the Christian people of this nation answer, and answer immediately, or it may be too late, and the great battle of truth may have to be fought again. By timely and energetic action we may avert so great a calamity.

The importance of the subject is our apology for this long digression from the current of Cranmer's history, to which we must return next month. (To be concluded.)

MISSION-WORK IN THE WYNDS OF GLASGOW.* FOURTEEN years ago, a young man, a divinity student in the Free Church of Scotland, had his attention drawn to the deplorable condition of the population inhabiting the Wynds of Glasgow. It occurred to him, that as the time was approaching when he must exchange the seclusion and quiet of student life for the active labours of the Christian ministry, it would be a great advantage to add to his college course those "practical studies, which could be best carried on in such a district; as a medical student would in the hospital, and by the bedsides of the poor."

Before accompanying him on his first visit of inspection to a neighbourhood which became the scene of his subsequent labours, it will be necessary to glance at the state of the population.

The Wynds of Glasgow, situated in the heart of the city, are described as "long, narrow, filthy, airless lanes, with every available inch of ground on each side occupied with buildings, many of them far gone, yet packed from cellar to garret with human life.......Many a building yielding a large rental was left without repair. From the influx of thousands of Roman Catholics from Ireland; from there being so many dark, devious dens, to which the thief and the harlot, like beasts of prey, could retire, and from which, as night came down, they might creep out to seek their victims; from the gradual exclusion, to a large extent, from the district, of the sober, industrious, God-fearing, native element; from the multiplication of whisky-shops; from the wild orgies of Saturday night, and the annual saturnalia of the 'Fair' holidays, with their shows and dancing-booths; from the old churches gradually losing their hold of the district, by losing the members that lived in it, and watched over it; from all such reasons the Wynds became worse and worse every year."

Accompanied by Mr. Hogg, an invaluable city missionary, who had been labouring for some time in this wretched district, the young stu dent began to reconnoitre the field of his future toil.

'Among the Masses: or, Work in the Wynds." By the Rev. D. Maccoll, Glasgow. London: T. Nelson and Sons. 1867.